A twitter like site to share your awesome stuff in 150 characters or less. Do awesome deeds. Raise your awesome quotient. It’s befuckingawesome.com Via Zoomdoggle
First it was candy-colored iPods, then Dell came up with a line of Willy Wonka inspired laptops, and now Bodum (who also made my French press) has a line of cheeky toasters. For those who believe that they have enough chrome and black in their kitchens, this is a little unexpected splash of color. I’m also a complete advocate for a toaster that does nothing more than toast bread. I have an oven — it’s my oven. The toaster oven was only good at taking a very long time to do things a microwave can do in minutes. And this one looks like it comes with a nice textured grip, just in case you toast on the go.
Attention femme fatals: if the past few weekends have consisted of daring missions to Bed, Bath and Beyond and seducing the bag boy at the grocery story, maybe it’s time to really indulge in something more exotic. Stiletto Spy School will plan full day adventures for ladies looking to improve their hand-to-hand combat, martini mixing, stunt driving, or tango dancing skills. You can choose from one of their planned itineraries, or create your own assignment. James Bond, meet Jane Bond.
The proper case is a vital part of keeping your tools in top condition, so store them with military precision in this Camouflage Toolbox by Alice Supply Co. Blend in with your surroundings to effectively wage war on loose screws, leaky faucets and protruding nails — you never know when you’ll need to take that arsenal of wrenches, hammers, and wingnuts into the home improvement jungle. And if you’re ever forced to go behind enemy lines with just a ball-peen hammer and nerves of steel, you’ll be ready.
I know it seems like iPhone app day here at JS, but this is a neat little post-lunch nap, pre-early happy hour time waster. Longtime reader Pete Anderson (aka Anthropophagy) sent us a note about his new iPhone game called Stay. It’s a simple deal: keep your shapes balanced on the beam while different types of blocks try to knock it off. Trickier than it looks. The full version will be in the iTunes store soon, but for now we have promo codes for the first three readers who comment on their favorite application.
If you’re the kind of person that enjoys large graphics wrapped around your car, or perhaps a large sticker over your garage door so it looks like a jet fighter is parked there, a custom wall print might just make your day. LTLprints has teamed up with veteran graphic designer Susan Kare to offer some of her best work, blown up and pixelly retro. Kare created many of the original typefaces and icons for Mac OS and recently was responsible for the “gifts” icons on Facebook. There are dozens to choose from and if you take the time to browse through the choices, I am sure a few will be instantly recognizable. For those of you not content with standard offerings, you can also design your own graphic collage with a neat drag and drop online tool.
Just as the imagery in his films haunts your dreams, the art of Tim Burton manages to get under skin while remaining perfectly still. While many of the pieces carry the Dr. Seuss meets Brothers Quay depictions we would expect from the director, some surprise you, specifically the crayon renditions of characters including what resembles Cesar Romero’s Joker. The site is endlessly fun in itself; navigate the topy turvy gallery by walking around as stain boy, a rudimentary drawing with a curious little smile as he checks out the wall hangings. You’ll spend more than a couple a minutes on this, guaranteed.
FingerBeat is a virtual instrument inspired by retro synthesizers & samplers, designed for creativity & self-expression. A homage to dance music and pop culture, FingerBeat is a classic for absolutely everyone. Only on iPhone & second generation iPod touch. You can check out a video of it here.
There are plenty in the creative arena who scoff at the idea of sport, likening athletic competition as entertainment for uncivilized mongrels. However, when the chasm between brute force and artistic inspiration is bridged, some wonderful things can occur. The Lawn Series from Recess is a refreshing and original happening aiming to eliminate the gap between endlessly inventive artisans and the arena of athletics. For three glorious days during the sweltering NYC summer on Governor’s Island, playful pastimes will overtake the creatively inclined as they attempt to best one another in exhilarating events such as badminton, table tennis, and bocce. In addition to the flowing of the competitive juices, each event will be met with some pretty kick ass sponsors as the likes of Tretorn and Puma will be putting their stamp on the festivities while Biomega and Kronan will be on hand to offer bike test rides. Count us in and bring it on. The first day of competition is June 20th. We’ll see you there…unless you’re afraid of defeat.
If Ugly Dolls are any standard for cuteness, then a stuffed E. coli bacterium is downright adorable. Giant Microbes, a Delaware company with a mind for the medical, creates plush stuffed toys resembling microscopic critters, viruses, and cells with enough personality to make a tapeworm look friendly. Among the categories are Corporeals, Tropicals, and (our favorite) Calamities, which include the black death, flesh-eating virus, and mad cow disease. The Petri Dish, a combination of any three microbes, makes for a perfect gift for the healthcare professional in your life, who will certainly get a kick out of these gross little cuties. No good looking cuddly for H1N1 yet though.
As you know, we’re all about recycling. But, Character, a Finnish design company is all about recycling in an altogether different sort of way. When a store decides to toss their neon signage, Character comes along, snags them, takes them apart, then rebuilds them into their own design creations that are complete with LED lights. The new letters and numbers – which feature a variety of colors and typefaces – can be used inside or outdoors and seem especially perfect for anyone obsessed with typography who finds the letter mugs at Anthropologie to be too mundane. We can only hope they start to work with neon images next.
At the moment, you can only purchase these in person in Helsinki, but a range of letters are available on their website for around 300 Euros. So much fun to imagine the uses for these!
We’ve been digging on info-graphs for a while, it’s our preferred method of learning. Intuitiongames is hosting an info-graph game titled “effing hail” explaining the weather through destruction. For those of you that don’t know how hail is formed, basically small water droplets get caught in a whirl wind deep inside a freezing thunder cloud. The longer they get blown around the more water collects to freeze and thus larger hail. Wouldn’t you prefer an info-graph to that explanation?
The premise of the game is to keep the small pieces of hail in the sky so its get bigger and bigger. Once they get to a certain size the small gust of wind you control can direct your moster ice rock to crash into a skyscraper or a plane. Damage is the goal. I got to the level where you had to take out some satellites. I couldn’t do it, maybe you can. It’s Friday, let’s play games!
Throughout the history of film there have been some pretty niftily designed posters, many of which have become iconic images. Sure you could spot the artwork for A Clockwork Orange even without the title (right?), but what if most of the image was stripped away and you were left to contend with only colors, patterns and shapes? Could you do it then? That’s what the site Film the Blanks asks of it’s readers. Monday to Friday, classic cinema images are added sans some very important details. Tidbits are gradually tacked on, challenging readers to summon their powers of cultural recall to figure out just what lies before them. The first ten to correctly guess the abstracted advertisement earn a point in the standings. The more you guess correctly, the more you increase the likelihood of your coming away with the prize of a special one-off poster. Even if you don’t win, you have to admit, most of this movie art looks pretty sweet stripped down. The site also offers some of those astonishing reduced images for sale in their very own online store.
It’s not often you find yourself at a loss for 140 characters on Twitter, but when’s the last time you said something truly unique that didn’t have to do with how spicy your lunch burrito was? Twitter Magnets, the internet incarnation of those random words on your fridge, allows you to craft an entirely distinct arrangement of thoughts for your next status update, provided you’re creative enough to fashion something meaningful out of the words you’ve been given. Whether you form a beautiful haiku or just randomly string some words together to make your friends think you’ve been drinking, it’s makes for an enjoyable new way to answer the question, “What are you doing?”
Remember PostSecret? That project that had people mailing their dirty little secrets all over the place to complete strangers? That was fun and all, but if you’re more photographically-inclined, you’ll probably get a bigger kick out of a similar new movement that launched called Igotanenvelope.
Here’s how it works:
You put an envelope with a stamp and your address in a place where others will discover it. On the back of the envelope, write a note to the one who found it asking them to place a personal object inside and mail it to you (the exact phrasing is on their site). Then, when you receive the envelope in the mail, take photos of the mysterious objects inside and post them on the Igotanenvelope site.
While it seems most unknown souls are mailing off magazine or newspaper clippings or other small, written works, other items like puzzle pieces and thongs have also arrived in the mail. If you try this out, let us know what you get in return!
Attention femme fatals: if the past few weekends have consisted of daring missions to Bed, Bath and Beyond and seducing the bag boy at the grocery story, maybe it’s time to really indulge in something more exotic. 
  
We’ve been digging on info-graphs for a while, it’s our preferred method of learning. 
Throughout the history of film there have been some pretty niftily designed posters, many of which have become iconic images. Sure you could spot the artwork for A Clockwork Orange even without the title (right?), but what if most of the image was stripped away and you were left to contend with only colors, patterns and shapes? Could you do it then? That’s what the site 
